Cheers! Turns out we can all drink our way to success

As a new study links youthful boozing sessions to raised education and income levels, Helen Coffey rejoices that her formative years as a millennial involved messy nights out

- Helen Coffey

Battered. Leathered. Twatted. Pissed. Sloshed. Bladdered. Plastered. Mullered. Wrecked. Hammered. Smashed.

The sheer number of words for “drunk” in the British lexicon gives some indication of what a national pastime binge-drinking is.

Or, should I say, used to be. As a millennial who came of age in the Noughties, I'm fully equipped with the booze-fuelled war stories that so many of my cohort boast with a befuddled mixture of pride and shame now we're all grown up. But times change, and the status quo changes with them. The new normal for young people is a world away from my early days of hedonism: going to the gym is the new going to the pub, and the sober curious movement has seen plenty of people swap sambuca for CBD.

Witnessing this cultural shift, I always presumed that my messy generation were the ones who had got it wrong. After all, other than an alarmingly large cache of drunken night out anecdotes, hideous Facebook photos and possible liver damage, what did any of us have to show for those wasted years of being, well, wasted? As it turns out, potentially our entire careers and future successes.

As strange as it may sound, a sociology professor from Norway believes that boozing when we're young has tangible, real-world benefits. Willy Pedersen of the University of Oslo has published research that links engaging in communal binging to better career outcomes for young adults.